PANEL 98    Irish Immigration after the Famine

During the devastating potato blight in Ireland and the famine that followed between 1845 to 1851, emigration to Scotland accelerated rapidly. At its peak in 1848, the average number of immigrants disembarking weekly at the quays in Glasgow was estimated at more than a thousand and between January and April of that year, 42,860 came. Even in a city expanding as fast as Victorian Glasgow, this influx was dramatic – probably the most intense episode of immigration into Scotland for a thousand years. Many quickly found jobs in the heavy industries clustering around the coalfields of North Lanarkshire. It was hard, menial and frustrating work. Many Irish Catholics found it difficult to rise through the ranks of skilled workers but, after the horrors of the Great Famine, these jobs put bread on the table and roofs over the heads of families. Founded in 1887 by the Irish Marist Brother Walfrid, Celtic Football Club had a social as well as a sporting purpose and the club soon began to prosper. In 1888, the first Old Firm match with Rangers took place. Celtic won 5–2 but many of their players had been signed from Hibernian Football Club in Edinburgh. The two clubs became emblematic of the tensions between Catholics and Protestants in Scotland but mercifully most of the violence is now usually confined to the football pitch.

 

Panel stitched by:

Trinity Stitchers

Joyce Ager

Muriel Cleland

Doreen Guy

Stitched in:

Edinburgh, North Berwick